Milestones
- BMS ALS collaborationOct 2020Complete.
- First own drug into trialsNowCurrent milestone.
Most important updates
- Oct 2020
Current obstacles
- From dish to patientWhat happens in cells in a dish may not match the disease in people, a long-standing gap.
Physics limits
- Cells in a dish are not a patientLab cells lack the tissues, immune system, blood flow and decades of disease history of a real body. Signals found in dishes often vanish in people, so trials remain the real test.
- Diseases of decades don't fit in a dishIllnesses like ALS unfold over years, in aged tissue. Stem-cell-derived cells are young and simple, so they capture only early or partial versions of the disease.
- Binding a target is not the same as a safe, working drugWhether a molecule is absorbed, reaches the right tissue, avoids toxicity and actually changes the disease depends on whole-body biology that no current model predicts. About 90% of drugs entering trials fail.
How it works
Genetics
Start from human DNA
Large human datasets link gene variants to disease, pointing to causes rather than side effects.
Cells
Patient-like cells in a dish
Stem cells carrying those variants are grown into neurons or liver cells, so the disease can be studied in the relevant cell type.
Learn
AI finds the signal
Automated imaging and measurements feed models that pick out disease features and candidate targets for drugs.
Update log
Oct 2020
- Minor: PressPartnership
About insitro
insitro
Machine learning, genetics, stem-cell models
South San Francisco company founded by Daphne Koller. It combines patient genetic data, lab-grown human cells and machine learning to find drug targets and predict who will respond, in brain and metabolic diseases.
- Raised a $400M Series C in Mar 2021; partnered with Bristol Myers Squibb on ALS and Eli Lilly on metabolic disease.
- Moving liver-targeted gene-silencing drugs for metabolic disease toward trials.
- Founded
- 20188 yrs
- Headquarters
- United States
- Status
- Private
- Valuation
- private
- Raised
- $400M1 round
- Last round
- Series C · $400M15 Mar 2021
- Works in
- BiotechAI drug discovery
- Coverage
- 1 program · 2 updateslatest 15 Mar 2021checked 25 Sep
- Lead investors
- CPP Investments
- People
- Daphne Koller (opens insitro.com)Founder and CEO